Afghan Warlord Shot Dead In Kabul

July 7, 2002|By Liz Sly Foreign correspondent

Kabul, Afghanistan — One of Afghanistan's most powerful and controversial warlords was gunned down in broad daylight outside his office in Kabul on Saturday, less than three weeks after he had assumed the office of vice president in the new U.S.-backed administration of President Hamid Karzai.

Witnesses said two casually dressed men armed with automatic rifles walked up to Vice President Abdul Qadir's jeep as it pulled out of the gates of the Ministry of Public Works and sprayed it with bullets. They then jumped into a waiting taxi and sped away.

Qadir, a former mujahedeen leader with a colorful past, was one of three vice presidents appointed by Karzai at last month's loya jirga, at which Qadir was also given the post of minister of public works.

But it was from his position as governor of Jalalabad, the biggest city in Pashtun-dominated eastern Afghanistan, that he derived his real power, and the assassination of such a key Pashtun figure so soon after the formation of the new government threatens to undermine the stability of the fragile regime, analysts said.

The slaying also came only hours after the United States admitted that an air strike in mainly Pashtun Uruzgan province last week mistakenly targeted civilians, an event that further weakens popular support for the U.S. mission and possibly for Karzai himself.

"The crisis of legitimacy Karzai is facing is going to deepen," said Aqil Shah, a Kabul-based analyst with the International Crisis Group, a European organization focusing on global conflict resolution. "This is seriously going to affect stability in the east, if not the south."

President Bush telephoned Karzai to express his condolences, telling reporters later that the killing deepened America's resolve to bring peace to Afghanistan.

"Our country mourns the loss of a man who desired freedom and stability for the country he loved," Bush said, adding that U.S. law enforcement and intelligence officials stood ready to help with the investigation, if Afghan officials requested.

Karzai hailed Qadir as a "national hero and a great jihadi leader" and called on Afghans nationwide to observe a day of mourning Tuesday.

The assassination comes as a bitter blow to Karzai's efforts to reconcile the Pashtun community to his new government.

Although Karzai himself is a Pashtun, the most influential members of his Cabinet belong to the minority Tajik-dominated Northern Alliance, which ousted the Taliban from Kabul last November, then assumed the most powerful positions.

That the killing occurred in the middle of the day in the heart of Kabul further called into question the government's ability even to exert control over the capital, which has until now been vaunted as the only part of Afghanistan that is secure.

Qadir was the most powerful Pashtun in the new administration, and his appointment to two key positions had widely been seen as an attempt by Karzai to appease the frustrations of Pashtuns who think the new government has failed to represent their interests.

There was no immediate indication of who was responsible, though there were many possibilities.

The authorities immediately arrested all 10 of the security guards posted outside the ministry, saying they were not official government employees and had done nothing to apprehend the assassins.

Outspoken and ambitious, Qadir had crossed swords with most of the major players in Afghanistan's civil war during a career spanning most of the conflict's 23 years.

But he had also earned respect, especially among Pashtuns, for his bravery in the fight against Soviet occupation and his refusal to surrender to extreme Islamic ideologies.